Philippine Carriers Request More Seats for Bangkok Flights

14th Jan 2013

The five carriers who filed their separate petitions to the regulatory board are the Philippine Airlines (PAL), Airphil Express, Cebu Pacific, Seair, and Zest Airways, according to CAB's Chief of Hearing and Examiners Division, Ma. Elben S.L. Moro.

Seair is asking for the most seat allocations (1,260), followed by ZestAir (900), Airphil Express and Cebu Pacific (720 each) and PAL (700).

During the bilateral talks held in November 2011, the Philippines was able to bag 1,480 seat entitlements a week between the two countries. The five airlines shall, therefore, vie for these entitlements.

In November of last year, the two countries sealed the agreement entitling the Philippine carriers to a total of 6,880 seats per week for the Manila-Bangkok sector, from the present 5,400 seats.

Aside from the Manila-Bangkok main sector, the Philippine carriers are also entitled to mount flights from any points in the Philippines to any points in Thailand with unlimited seats.

Currently, four of the Philippine carriers asking for new seat entitlements for the Manila-Bangkok sector have existing entitlements from Clark to "any points in Thailand". Airphil Express, which is a PAL low-cost subsidiary, gets the largest slice of the pie at 3,734 seats each week. ZestAir comes at a distant second with less than half of Airphil's total, at 1,354. Cebu Pacific and Seair, on the other hand, have 1,260 seats on the same frequency.

However, these entitlements are not fully utilized as only Cebu Pacific has existing service between Clark and Thailand through its 3 times weekly Clark-Bangkok flights. Even so, Cebu Pacific has not really fully used its entitlements for the route.

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The airlines are not fully interested with the present entitlements given to them to fly from Clark to any points in Thailand as they consider it as less profitable.

Being their respective country's major hub, Manila and Bangkok are perceived to be more lucrative to fly than any other routes between the two countries.

The new petitions will be heard on January 16 in the CAB office in Pasay City.

The most recent data available at CAB show that the volume of international passengers flying with the five carriers in nine months ending September 2012, in general, increased by no less than 20% annually. Seair was the biggest winner during the period as it flew a total of 205,649 international passengers or a hefty 60% increase from 128,102 in the preceding period. Zest Air posted the second biggest increase at 33% or 218,601 from 164,298. Cebu Pacific, the country's biggest carrier, posted a decent 11.54% to 2.03 million from 1.82 million international travelers it had previously flown. The national flag carrier, meanwhile, was able to post a 2.68% growth over the same period having flown a total of 3.07 million international passengers from 2.99 million. Only Airphil Express posted a negative growth whose volume dropped by 2.25%, or 104,820 down from 107,235.

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